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Episerver Takes Gartner Leaders Quadrant for Third Year Running

Among the tools that are available for organizations who are seeking solutions for their web content management needs, Gartner's Magic Quadrant is one of the most familiar and scrutinized within the industry. Platforms like Episerver count it as a good reflection of their efforts to be well regarded in the visual results of the research. This year, Episerver has been included in the "Leader" quadrant for the third year running, but what does that mean?

The way that Gartner presents the research they do is what makes them unique among industry resources. While shopping for anything, for your home or your business, you want to be as informed as possible about the options in the marketplace. The easier it is to get, see, and understand those options, the easier it is to make an informed decision, whether you are looking for the best price on a new appliance or trying to procure an enterprise-level web content management system to power your e-commerce or digital personalized content efforts.

What the researchers at Gartner have attempted to do is to provide a tool every year that takes all the research they have about how a specific technology platform performs and to represent it visually, with each platform being represented as a dot that exists on a spectrum housed in a giant square with four quadrants.

Those four quadrants are challengers, leaders, niche players, and visionaries. The higher the dots are in their quadrant, the higher their score in an "ability to execute" metric. The further to the right they are in their quadrant, the higher their score in a metric defined as "completeness of vision".

A platform's place in their quadrant, then, should be a reflection of those two things, their ability to execute, and completeness of vision.

Gartner makes a Magic Quadrant for many different technological solution sets like security, customer service, and web content. Episerver's placement on the WCM Magic Quadrant in the "Leader" portion, is a reflection of their ability to execute on their overall business goals as a platform, and that should provide confidence to any organization that makes the choice to have Episerver power their web content management needs.

“Our goal at Episerver is to provide marketers and merchandisers with efficient, super productive and engaging content management tools with innovative personalization methods that help them do their job better,” said James Norwood, CMO and EVP Strategy at Episerver. “We believe our inclusion on Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for Web Content Management reinforces Episerver’s leadership and commitment to building out our Digital Experience Cloud.”

As a solution partner, we are very familiar with the Digital Experience Cloud, and with the value inherent in Episerver as (in our view) the best solution to many web content management needs. Does that mean it is the solution for every single one of the organizations we assist? Not always, but a key part of our process is to make sure you understand your options and how those options best meet your digital needs.

Picking a web content management system is an important business decision, and no matter how much information you have about the marketplace, the odds are, you are going to want a partner to help you through implementation and execution. That's where we come in. As noted in July by CMS-Connected, James Norwood lays out some specifics around that partnership.

“Episerver’s platform provides a comprehensive WCM solution for mid-sized to larger organizations and so does require an implementation partner or internal technical resource to help implement. However, once it's up and running, one of the biggest benefits of the Digital Experience Cloud is that it's easy for marketers and merchandisers to use." They go on to quote Mr. Norwood as stating, "...it’s reasonable that customization would require some degree of technical expertise, although configuration once a marketer is trained is straightforward. At the end of the day, content marketers can be productive with Episerver in a matter of hours.”

As mentioned, this is Episerver’s 3rd time being recognized as a Leader

Episerver ranks 4th most visionary of the 18 most important WCM vendors

Episerver credited with “timely and well-executed acquisitions” a designation which highlights their commitment to continued growth and adaptions of their CMS to address the technological needs that organizations need to address to stay competitive digitally.

Have you used the Magic Quadrant as a way to pick your web content management solution? Let us know over social or in the comments below.

About the Author

Chris Osterhout

Chris rose through the ranks of website development, ASP.NET architecture, project management and team leadership, to overall digital solution strategy management. As SVP of Strategy, Chris helps clients understand the entire digital spectrum and guides them toward successful online solutions. Chris is a recognized expert on the Ektron / EPiServer CMS platforms and publishes, speaks and provides general thought leadership to clients and the greater web development community alike.